Gamers gaining power

There’s definitely been a huge trend growing in our cute little worldwide gaming community. Many gamers from all over the world are, in some sort, protesting against huge money-seeking game developers that, for some reason, forgot that the main goal of game development is to make a game fun to play, not fast to pay. The issue has been ongoing and growing over the last couple of months. And it is here to stay.

The latest example could easily include Reddit war with EA, which began with the most downvoted post on Reddit of all time and has now transformed into a petition from players to make Lucasfilm revoke ea’s star wars license. This easily can be seen as a single act of protest, however, the trend is game-changing. Players of different ages and social groups have gathered and stood up against this situation, and will now be much more careful and mindful when it comes to opposing greedy game developers. We’ve felt the power because it’s what this industry is all about.

Now its even worse, sitting around 680k downvotes

As well as that, Mass Effect: Andromeda was a huge disaster. Each and every fan of the series was, to say the least, shocked by how bad the game was. Poor motion design, literally creepy face models, NPC’s getting stuck in each other and randomly appearing and disappearing at times. Visuals were close to ones from games made in early 2010’s, so the audience got very critical about it. However, the game is not about graphics and animations. It is expectations versus reality issue. People wanted a great new instalment of the franchise, but were, to put it simple, disappointed.

Another issue is the combination of growing global microtransactions revenues and major opinion leaders saying, that video games seem to be an underpriced form of entertainment. And this is completely opposite side of the medal. Most of the gamers will agree, that price tags for AAA games have been growing as of late, even though there’s a lot less in terms of distribution cost: most games are now downloadable, and game distribution maintenance is a lot cheaper when calculated per copy of a game bought. Nevertheless, game devs are raising prices for games while including microtransactions and forcing players to buy them. It’s easy to point out, that smart microtransactions (ones that don’t impact the gameplay itself) are a great addition to a game. If you want to support developers – just get some cool pink gun skins or wings for your character. However, when they make a game pay-to-win, altering the game experience for players that donate and ones who don’t, it’s a disaster. And nowadays it is as easy, as never before for gamers to cooperate and stand up to those shady devs, that have forgotten some basic principles of their industry. We can see this issue growing in size since from now every major AAA release will be under a never-sleeping eye of the global gaming community.

Obviously, this situation is a beacon of light for players. Development studios will (hopefully) be releasing way more polished games or get instantly demolished on Reddit and major gaming websites, that have sided with players in this war. However, now their product may take longer to be released, but personally, we think some extra time waiting is a lot better than receiving a poorly-made game with tons of bugs and disturbing gameplay.

What do you think about the whole situation? Does it make you feel like the gaming industry is changing with it, or it is only a small issue that is going to be forgotten as the time passes by? Let us know in the comments below!